Lopez Island is participating in a new regional program aimed at curbing stormwater pollution. Lopez is one of more than 50 cities and counties involved in a coalition called STORM, a group formed to help educate the public about stormwater-related issues. Recently, STORM teamed up with the Puget Sound Partnership and more than 200 environmental organizations in an unprecedented campaign to save Puget Sound. The campaign is called Puget Sound Starts Here and it encourages area residents to adopt certain behaviors that will help stem stormwater pollution.
Stormwater pollution starts in the community’s backyards and driveways – and we have the power to address it.
The campaign focuses on four common behaviors that most residents can easily adopt to reduce the amount pollution entering the Sound.
• Take cars to a commercial car wash, where wash water is properly handled. Car wash water can be as potentially toxic to marine life as some industrial wastewater discharges.
• Fix car leaks, or place cardboard under the car in the short term to catch leaking oil or fluids.
• Use compost – instead of fertilizers or pesticides – to grow a healthy lawn and garden.
• Pick up pet waste with a bag – both in the yard and in public places – and place it in the trash.
Such an effort is vital for the waters of the islands and Puget Sound in general.
• Across the 12 counties bordering Puget Sound’s 2500 miles of shoreline there are thousands of storm drains and streams pouring polluted water into the Sound’s fragile ecosystem.
• Puget Sound has unhealthy levels of many different toxic chemicals mainly due to stormwater runoff.
• Approximately 75 percent of all pollution in Puget Sound comes from stormwater runoff that starts in neighborhoods.
• Whales and other marine life are dying and salmon runs are shrinking.
• 549 streams, rivers and lakes across the Puget Sound region suffer from poor water quality.
• If the pollution increases there is the potential demise of the $147 million annual commercial and recreational fishing as well as $9.5 billion associated with the tourism industry.
For more information, go to http://www.psp.wa.gov/ (Puget Sound Partnership).
